“He should be home soon. Ah, have a seat.” He gestured to the big leather sectional.
She perched on the edge of the couch, her purse on the floor, her beer clasped in both hands. Awareness sparked between them. He wanted to grab her and pull her onto his lap and kiss the breath out of her.
“So. You gonna tell me why you’re really here?”
“Okay. I just wanted you to know that…” Her voice went low and throaty. “I just wanted you to know that you didn’t have to be mad at me for telling your parents the truth. Even if you were just mad because…” She stopped and swallowed. “Because you were worried about me, you don’t have to be. Because I’m fine. And I wanted you to know that. To know that I’d already been thinking about leaving Mapleglen, and if I do, someday, it won’t be because of that. It’ll be because I want to.”
He watched her, listened to her, his gut tight, her bravery and courage making his heart turn over in his chest and ache. Christ, she was special.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Kaelin.”
She regarded him warily. “Sorry for what?”
He sighed, bent his head, the words stuck in his throat. “I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry for what I said. I’m sorry I keep acting like an asshole, especially to you.”
Waves of silence had him lifting his head to peer at her. Her face shone with trails of silvery tears, her bottom lip full and quivery.
“Fuck!” He slammed his beer onto the coffee table and shifted across the couch toward her. “Don’t cry! Jesus, I did it again!” She came into his arms willingly, her body slender and trembling against his. He pressed her wet face to his shoulder. “I’m sorry, sweet baby, I’m so sorry.”
“Why did you do it?” she asked, her voice muffled in his dress shirt. “Why did you want to hurt me that way? That night…”
“You mean with Tracy?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you. I just wanted you to know the truth about me.”
“What truth? That you like to tie girls up?”
“Yeah. That. But mostly just that I was no good for you.”
“Oh, Tyler.” She sighed. “If you weren’t interested, you should have just told me that.”
He snorted. “No shit. Would’ve saved myself and Nick a whole helluva lot of grief if we hadn’t done that, that night. How was I supposed to know Tracy was going to freak out like that? Telling you would have been the smart thing to do, but I never claimed to be that smart. And besides, I was interested in you.”
She lifted her head and gazed at him with big, wet, questioning eyes. He eased a strand of hair off her face. “But I was still no good for you,” he said. “I was in trouble more often than not. I did like to tie up girls. I did like to screw around with Nick. I was so messed up.”
She closed her eyes and looked as if someone was breaking her fingers. “You’re such an idiot, Tyler.”
“I know. I fucked up a lot of things. Believe me, I know.”
He brushed a kiss over her mouth, that soft, sweet mouth. Her lips parted. Their eyes met. Their breath mingled. His eyes closed as he moved in for another kiss, long, slow and warm. One hand slid over her hip, rested on her waist, the other smoothed over her jaw, rubbing away the tears. A wave of such intense pleasure and heat washed over him, he groaned into her mouth.
He deepened the kiss, slid his hand into her silky hair and cupped the back of her head, his tongue sliding inside her mouth in slow strokes, tasting her. She tasted sweet, so sweet, the sweetest girl he’d ever known, but he also knew she was more than just sweet, she was as dark and deep as he was. It was the difference between vanilla soft-serve and the extra dark Scharffen Berger chocolate he loved.
She kissed him back, her mouth opening to him, her tongue rubbing on his, making small moaning noises in her throat, trembling in his arms. She pressed her whole body into him, especially soft breasts against his chest. She wrapped her arms around his head and held on, and they kissed, endless, long, drugging tongue kisses.
“Kaelin,” he whispered, his cheek pressed to hers. “Christ, Kaelin. You scare the crap out of me.”
He felt her smile and she rubbed her face against his beard stubble. “The big bad boy is scared,” she murmured, fingers drifting across his shoulders, into his hair, sending pleasure cascading down his body.
“Oh hell yeah. I’ve never…I don’t know what this is,” he said. “Seriously, Kaelin.” He rested his forehead against hers, eyes closed. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop aching for you. I don’t know what to do about it.”
“I don’t know either,” she whispered. “But I know I feel the same. That’s why I’m here.”
He groaned again and slipped a hand beneath her legs, then stood with her in his arms. Her fingers dug into his shoulders and he strode from the living room into the short hall and into his bedroom. The blinds were still down, shutting out the evening sun, the room cool and dim. He let her feet slide to the floor, stood her in front of him and, watching her face, slowly drew the straps of her dress down her arms then pushed the bodice down to her waist. She stood before him, letting him study her, with his eyes, with his hands. He slid his hands across her shoulders, brushed over her collarbones, traced his fingertips over the curve of flesh above the edge of her hot pink lace bra.
“Very nice,” he murmured, lowering his gaze to her smooth stomach. His hands slid down her sides, the inward curve of her waist, the swell of her hips, pushing the dress as he went until it slid past her hips and fell to the floor.
She tugged on his loosened tie. “This is very sexy,” she murmured. “Very businesslike.”
She unbuttoned his shirt and parted it to kiss his throat, her lips soft and warm. Her mouth moved lower as she unfastened each button, one by one, kiss by kiss. He started to go down, or maybe up, up in flames, especially when she reached his quivering abs and began tugging the shirt from his pants. And licked. Jesus. Christ. She licked his stomach, his bellybutton, while she opened his pants and reached inside.
He was hard, throbbing hard, and her hand closing over him sent heat racing through his veins in scorching pulses. The stroke of her hand on him had a harsh tremor shaking his body and then she went lower still, to her knees in front of him, tugging his pants down, her hands caressing his thighs. More heat rushed through his body and his brain cells started sizzling and popping. He was pretty sure that’s what that noise was.
“Kaelin,” he croaked, his fingers in her hair, sifting through the silky strands. And then her mouth closed over the head of his cock and he made some kind of unintelligible, embarrassing noise that almost sounded like a sob.
Scorching wet heat surrounded him, her little tongue rubbing and teasing, her mouth sucking and sliding on him. More noises escaped him, his fingers tightened in her hair. Electric thrills raced from his balls up his spine and he clenched his teeth to try to stop the whimpers in his throat. He looked down at her, her slender nose nearly pressing into his hair there, her eyes closed, her mouth stretched over his girth. Christ she could take him deep. Not all the way, because he was big and she was small, but damn, he was in her throat and she was sucking hungrily on him and making little pleasure noises.
“Damn, that’s good.” He managed to articulate three words. Tried for more. “So good, sweet baby. So, so good. Suck me. Oh yeah.”
She opened her eyes and looked up at him, their gazes snagging and holding, her big brown eyes surrounded by long eyelashes, her cheeks pink. He caressed her cheek with his fingertips, then widened his stance and rolled his pelvis forward in a gentle thrusting motion into her mouth. Her eyes went dark and she let him fuck her mouth. Emotion punched him in the gut, took his breath away, pleasure consumed him, love and lust twisted up inside him. And then she let him slide out of her mouth and with her hand she held his cock up and dipped her head to lick his balls.